Cutty Sark, Vintage Billing Boats BB564, 1:75.

[DomCee]

Part 36: The Bumpkins

The masts and yards are a “work-in-progress” mainly because the space I use to do my spray painting is unheated and it’s been too cold to work in there! As soon as it warms up a little bit, I will finish painting and varnishing them and fit the iron works before I post an update.

In the mean-time I have been working on some of the detail parts that I need to finish off the hull. One thing I was not decided on were the bumpkins. They are stout hinged rods that are used to secure the lower braces. There are two pairs, one set amid ships and one set on the rear quarter (see images for reference). A short chain guy attached to the hull takes some of the pull of the braces. They are hinged so that they can be folded against the hull when in harbour. The mid and rear bumpkins are not the same (Longridge says they are), the rear set being slightly longer and having more eyes. Kevin at KTL sent me some very nice, printed versions but, I decided that there was a 100% chance of me catching and snapping them or breaking the rings, so I decided to make some from brass using Kevin’s printed versions as a guide.


The mid-bumpkin


The rear quarter-bumpkin

The rings are roughly angled at 45° to be in line with the braces and guys so they are mirrored pairs port and starboard.

I used some 3mm x 3mm brass C channel for the bracket and 2mm brass rod for the bumpkin rods (the front bumpkin is 15mm long and the rear 16mm). I tried soldering a short rod to the back of the brackets for fixing them into the hull but had some trouble getting a strong enough joint so, I used a micro tap and die to create some threads and screwed the rod into the rear of the bracket, ran a small mill cutter down the channel to take off the protruding end and then locked it with some CA. I drilled out the holes for the hinge pins and eyes in the rod, cleaned and blackened everything up, fitted them together and gave them a coat of black paint. It was rather fiddly work, and several ended up in the bin but they came out OK in the end.


The completed bumpkins



Next up: Finish off the painting and iron work for the masts and yards.

 

[Kevin the Lubber]

That’s impressive work at that scale. You have me thinking now that maybe I should take a look at putting a brass or CF stiffener in the rod.

 

[DomCee]

That’s impressive work at that scale. You have me thinking now that maybe I should take a look at putting a brass or CF stiffener in the rod.

Hi Kevin, thanks for the resin prints, they were really useful to use as templates. Longridge does not give the dimensions and the ones in his book are not the same as the ones on the ship now. They came out very nice but it did take me quite a long time to make the set!

 

[Kevin the Lubber]

You're welcome. I largely based mine on my photos, given Campbell just does a rough sketch. I always had it in mind to glue mine on at the last possible moment. The trouble with a plan like that is that there are so many delicate details at these scales that you can get a bit stuck. When I do go back to finish off the model, I'll probably just put bubblewrap or styrofoam around all the vulnerable areas and hope for the best. At least in my case, breakage is just a nuisance as I can usually easily make replacements..

 

[Peter Voogt]

Hi Dom. I want to wish you a Happy Birthday! Enjoy this day!
Regards, Peter

 

[DomCee]

Part 37: Progress on the Lower Masts

Whilst I am working on the yards, I also needed work out what fittings are needed on each of the masts so that I could position the trusses correctly. To index the masts, I marked a centre line and inserted some 0.5mm brass pegs at the top and bottom to serve as the fore/aft reference orientation. All the lower masts sections are similar as can be seen in the image of the fore mast. Each mast has two eye bolt bands above the foot. The foot is taller on the main and the bands are positioned slightly higher to avoid the bilge pump.

Foremast Lower Mast Bands and Mast Foot (but similar on all masts)

The lower iron band sit just above the mast foot and there is an upper spider band that is used for belaying about 4ft above the deck (17-20mm at scale). I used some 0.3mm thick brass strips 2mm wide and a cut-off brass nail to clamp the band. There are x8 vertical eyes per mast for the lower band (for the purchase blocks) and x8 eye sockets on each of the spider bands for taking belaying pins. The mast foots can be made from some dowel sections slightly larger than the mast diameter which I scaled to 3mm high fore/mizzen and 5mm for the main. The mast foots were normally covered in canvass and tarred to form the seal, so a matt black finish is appropriate.



I have already made a few parts for fitting out the masts but I also needed to make the cheeks and the futtock shrouds for the tops. I referred to Longridge’s descriptions because the Billing plans are very basic and do not have this detail. I posted some images of the masts tops in Part 33 that are well worth studying carefully as they contain a wealth of detail. I am not super-detailing the masts but instead I have opted for a “half-way-house” using some of the yard trusses and the goose necks from the kit and making some of the other fittings according to Longridge.

The cheeks: are positioned on the fore-side of the mast (Billing shows them on the sides). Longridge gives the measurements for the length of the cheeks as 6ft fore/main and 5ft for the mizzen (23mm for the fore/main and 20mm for the mizzen at scale size) as measured from the bottom of the tops. They are thin curved plates which are angled at the top corresponding to the mast rake so that when stepped, the tops are level with the keel. I opted to make them from 1.2 mm sapele and I milled some shallow rebates (0.5mm) down the mast using a 1mm mill cutter so that the cheeks fitted neatly to the mast at the correct separation.

Note: the main course yard truss is also the gooseneck for the Spencer Gaff, but I opted to use two trusses, although it would have been easy enough to solder both on to one truss. Similarly, the gooseneck for the spanker boom and cross jack truss are one piece on the ship but I used two.

The futtock shrouds: are steel rods which pass through the main top and are connected to lugs below the lower yard truss. Billing uses thread but I decided to make them from 0.5 mm brass rod to strop the deadeyes in much the same way as for main rails. The easiest way to fix the end at the mast was to drill some holes for the rod.

Chain slings: all the lower yards are supported by chain slings so it was easy to fit an eye on the mast just below the lower top between the cheeks that I can hang the chain from.

I am glad that I took my time setting up the brass mast sockets when I built the hull - a very wise move! Having the sliding brass tubes on the masts made it very easy to work on the masts and then slide them into the hull to check everything lined-up and the tops were at the correct angles.

Painting: According to Longridge and Campbell, the Lower Masts are painted all white. The Top Gallants and Royals are varnished. Fittings on the lower masts may be black or white depending on the period (builders choice, historical pictures show both), all other fittings are black. I opted for all black. The doublings are all painted in white as are the top gallant caps and the trestle trees. The lower tops are wood but the supporting framework is white (but I am not adding the frame). The stunsail booms are varnished except for the ends which extend out beyond the yards which are black. All the yards are black.



Lower Mast Sections

Next up:

Finish off painting and varnishing the top masts and yards.

I will also finish adding all the eyes for the rigging blocks as needed and I will do the same for the yards. There is a lot of them, so I will need to study the rigging plans very carefully!